FW: Chicago (fwd) -- long

[carljweber]

This is a critique of my work from Michael McCafferty. I've studied the
history, linguistics and cartography, and can provided citations for all my
conclusions and surmises. My complaint about McCafferty's technique is that
he provides no citations. The biggest question here is whether you believe
that "Ochelaga" on a map of 1534
(http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/portuguese.html) is strong evidence
against the "ochelaga"as "discovered" by Cartier in 1535.

> The following is from Michael McCafferty, in response to Carl Weber's
> etymology for Chicago, recently on the ADS list.  I pass this along at
> Michael's request.
>
> Frank Abate
>
>
> -----
> Here are some comments on Carl Weber's latest ideas. I have had to edit
> out much of his comments because of space restrictions. Perhaps these
> are available in an ADS archive. If anyone has a genuine interest in any
> of this topic and wants more information, please feel free to contact me.
>
> Michael McCafferty
> mmccaffe at indiana.edu
>
>
>
> > >
> > >RE: Ch8ca8a
>
> Comments following these symbols > > are Mr. Weber's.
>
> > >2-25-02
> > >
> > >
> > >Dear Mr. Rhodes,
> > >
> > > My claim is that LaSalle named Chicago and popularized the name.
>
> La Salle was indeed the first European to record the place name. However,
> it was also recorded independently.

Weber
I might add that I am the one that "rediscovered" the earliest attested use
in a text, and the earliest on a map, Franquelin, 1684. I have to my
knowledge, without going into the French Archives, most of the attestations
of "Chicago"
in texts, and on maps through 1700. When you say "recorded," what do you
mean? If you are talking about
the "recording" of John Swenson's "Chicagoua,"which he talks as if it were
the
original form, whereas it does'nt come up in the beginning until nearly two
decades?

>
>
> > >He coined "Checagou" as part of his grand continent-scale plan, his
> choice
> > >of name under the influence of European rooted toponyms employed over a

> > >century-and-a-half of European cartography.  My idea, based on a
sequence
> of
> > >maps, is that current "Chicago" as English, was borrowed in the spoken
> > >language from the Miami/Illinois,
>
> The term IS Miami-Illiois /$ikaakwa/ 'striped skunk'. The connotation of
> this native term was /Allium tricoccum/.
>
> $=sh
>

Weber
You accept "Chicago" as Amerindian in origin, I do not.

> > >Importantly, Mercator (mid-1600s) got his
> > >"Hochelaga" and "Chilaga," with their -- as I claim -- water
morphemes --
> > >from Portuguese maps, NOT French.
>

> These are truly Laurentian Iroquoian place names. There is absolutely no
> debate about this.

Weber
I call on this. What is your source documentation?

>  Several Iberian names, including,
> > >apparently, "Canada," were mistakenly re-etymologized as Amerindian,
> based
> > >on Cartier, 1535).


> Again, <Canada> is pure Iroquoian. End of discussion.

End the discussion if you like. Where is your proof?

> > >The  "Ch8-" (close to English "shoe") of Le Boulanger's dictionary's
> > >"Ch8ca8a" (1720) must be reconciled with the "Chi-" of front vowel
forms,
>
> Le Boullenger's term was a miscopy. This is borne out by the spelling of
> the term in the **earlier** French-Illinois dictionary (Watkinson Library)
> and the other, contemporaneous French-Illinois dictionary (Archives
> Jesuites).

Weber
I only know of the Le Boulanger and Gravier dictionaries. What is the other
dictionary's name.
About the "miscopy" you mention, it seems you are talking about Le
Boulanger's "Chica8o"
and Gravier's "Chica8a." I'm talking about "Ch8ca8a"as part of "cape8a
irach8ca8a" and "piman
ch8ca8a." LeBoulanger gives the meaning, "il passe dans l'eau marche." I'm
not talking about the onion word.


>  If "Ch8-" is considered Algonquian, you are
> > >right. But, as my current thinking goes, it is European and is related
to
> > >French "Chuca-" ("to fall" + pronoun ), and is found earlier in
Spanish,
> and
> > >still earlier in Portuguese.

> This does not merit comment.

Weber
The documentation of "ochelaga" by Cartier is the earliest knowledge of it?
Wrong (see 1634 map).

>
> >> "Chucagou,"
> > >corridor, from the southwest tip of Lake Michigan to the Illinois
River.

Weber
I think you edited me. The corridor is "Checagou."

> This is a miscopy or a confusion with a term for an unknown midcontinental
> river that La Salle was forever attempting to locate, whose name goes back
> to the Spaniards and which is not related to the Miami-Illinois name for
> the river that empties into Lake Michigan at present-day Chicago.
>
Weber
I think that I am familiar with most of the maps and texts. Please explain
"miscopy" and "confusion." Could you be specific on how the
river LaSalle was attempting to locate goes back to the Spaniards.

>  On
> > >the basis of this map, "Chucagoua," found in the French and found in
the
> > >chronicles of DeSoto, MIGHT be cognate with LaSalle's "Checagou." A
> > >comparison of names as they appeared on important European maps from
the
> mid
> > >1500s through about 1700 yields some valuable conclusions, but the data
> is
> > >not yet in with water morphemes from about half a dozen Franco/Iberian
> > >languages. What, as a Latin derived toponym, does "Chiogigu" mean? On
the
> > >maps before 1600 it is the name of the mythic river that empties into
the
> > >north sea. Is it Galitian?
>
> Indeed, La Salle did believe there was such a river in the midcontinent.

Weber
You are talking about something different.After 1673, the year of Marquette
and Jolliet's partial descent down the Mississippi, Europe learned the great
inland river went to the Gulf (not west or east). Everyone thought that the
River of Marquette and Jolliet discharged into Mobile Bay, until LaSalle
showed otherwise nine years later. Both the Ohio River (west to Memphis)
(Franquelin 1684, Minet's 1685) and the great river emptying into Mobile Bay
he called "Choucagoua" (In Spanish, "Chucagua,"seen first on Sanson
1673/74)(French "Chuca-" is in Spanish "Chiaca," as translated by Sanson on
their own maps (1656 and 1657).

> But he was also in the business of deceiving people with his geography and
> hydrology. See Jean Delanglez.

Weber
There is one reference in the literature, but no support. It says he mapped
his Mississippi discharge hundreds of miles to the west of where is should
be in order to put the outlet nearer the fabulous silver mines of Zacatecas.
He would thus have more pusuasive power with the King's Ministers for his
plan for La Louisiane if it served as easy access to Mexico. I've seen
Delangley, and others.

>La Salle based his pre-1684 knowledge on
> the Spaniards.

Weber
How has that been determined? Has his biographer Francis Parkman said
anything about that that I missed? Or others. LaSalle did spend long hour at
Fort Frontenac discussing with Louis Hennepin, in the 1770s, the great
discoveries of earlier explorers. LaSalle did not read Spanish. LaSalle was
looking at
the same maps that I look at. He was influenced by the Spaniards to the same
extent that European cartography was influenced. He was very interested in
French cartography, however, and the (1) Sanson map of 1673/4, which
radically reconfigured the Gulf,  plus (2)the knowledge that the Mississippi
discharged into the Gulf were highly significant in his thinking as he
traced  on
century old maps the mostly fictitious placenames and the mostly
fictitious rivers.  The De l'Isle map of 1703, which set the correct
latitude of the Mississippi's discharge, was a milestone.

>His post-1684 conceptions were distorted to his benefit in
> his grand scheme to establish the French in Mexico.
>
Weber
You mean post April 7, 1682, when he navigated into the Gulf , and it was
NOT
at Mobile Bay. Must have been a tremendous letdown. And YOU know that in the
intrigues of the court back in France it was not HIS scheme

> > >Before 1600, European maps typically show a mythical mighty river
flowing
> > >into the mythical North Sea. The toponyms of European (Portuguese)
> > >cartography show "water" roots, before 1600 -- particularly for the
great
> > >river "Chiogigua" flowing north from Canada. After the gradual
> progressive
> > >exploration of the Great Lakes, European cartography dropped its belief
> in
> > >an inland north/south river that discharged to the north, and picked up
> the
> > >belief that it went southerly, perhaps southeast to the Vermillion Sea,
> off
> > >the Coast of southern California. After 1673 everything changed, and
it's
> a
> > >long story, with gaps.



> <Chiogigua> is supposedly a Muskogean term picked up by the Spaniards in
> the 1500s. La Salle consulted their works extensively. The term resembles
> <Chicago> only superficially. Such superficial resemblances are
> commonplace.

Weber
I never saw a Muskogean term as a name for an important river or
settlement.in this period.
Second, and more to the point, the Muskogean live on the plains of the
rivers that empty into the Gulf. Why would the Spanish "pick up" that name
from southerners and use it for
a river emptying into the mythical arctic Northwest Passage. You'll see this
on maps prior to
1600. LaSalle looked at all these maps. We can too.


> > >The French Cartographer Sanson was the first to "-agua" as a loanword
> from
> > >Spanish, rendered on French maps "-agoua." The "-ou + a" of French
> "-agoua"
> > >is easily associated, incorrectly, I claim, with Algonquian grammar.
> French
> > >"agoua," as a loan word from Spanish "agua," has appeared, as I could
> find,
> > >only in one dictionary (of French Argot), and it was never considered a
> > >French word by the Academy. Nonetheless, in the later 1600s, the French
> > >borrowed the word for their maps, and recast it as "-agoua," "-aoua,"
and
> > >other orthographies (cf. It crossed my mind the Chaouanons Indians
might
> > >have been called so by the French with this word in mind + "-anons" the
> > >Huron/Iroquois word for "people."

> > This paragraph is ridiculous, including the parenthetical remark:
>><-anons> is not the Iroquoian populative final.

Weber
I have more evidence about this, seen mostly on Sanson's 1656 La Canada. A
politically important map because it filled the St. Laurence Valley with
placenames considerably fabricated to fill the space on Sanson's first
version that came out in 1650. The "Chaouanons" that Michael is talking
about is first seen on "The Manitou Map" of1673, and then engraved and
printed by Thevenot in 1881. They are the "Chaouanons" that gave the name to
the Shawnee, so it was thought. But notice on Sanson's map of 1656 the name
"Chaouaeronon" for Indians ABOVE the St. Laurence, and would have nothing to
do with the later Indians. Totally different place, totally different
Indians (but
still Algonquian). It would be something not unlike "people of the water."
Of course "-anons" is a populative final. I didn't mean to be "ridiculous."
 So does "-eronon" and several other variations mean people in
Iroquois/Huron. Water morpheme placenames are also given from the Normande
"cou-" (which is the equivalent of  French "chou.") On the 1656, also, map
is this "Cou-" ("Couaeronon," and "Cacouchaqui") also above the St.
Laurence. These, like many map names, are contrived names -- descriptive for
the Europeans.

>
> > >Spanish "-agua" is seen in French "Chagouamigon," and its slightly
> shorter
> > >forms "Chagoumigon," and "Chaouamigon," as they appeared in free
> variation
> > >in the 1680s on the maps of Franquelin  (he was Canada's Royal
> > >cartographer).
>
> I've never seen Franquelin use these spellings, and I imagine that
> represent misreadings by Weber.

Weber
These are on his unpublished sketches. I have the citations.

>The term in question refers to the Chicago
> peninsula. It appears on Franquelin's 1684 map as <Chcagoumeinan>, I
> believe.

Wrong on two counts. "Che- " is the accurate first part. Secondly, like
others before you, have picked up a thread that saw "-in-" instead of
"-m-." Maybe from Taub in the 1950s

Weber
Here is a most important point. Under the black line
on your Franquelin 1684, near "Checagoumeman," is LaSalle's "Chekagou." It's
under the line and you don't see it. You, Swenson, Vogel -- every body
missed it. It very persuasively puts LaSalle at the scene of the action when
Chicago was being named. This is the earliest map with Chicago on it, my
discovery. There hadn't even been a full size reproduction of this map in
Chicago. The Newberry ordered one right away, when they learned about it
from my work, and I donated a copy to the Chicago Historical Society.


>I'd have to get out my copy  of the map and see. The term is
> Miami-Illinois and means 'striped skunk peninsula'.

Weber
Checagoumeman means that? There is no peninsula around here. I never came
across "-meman" as "peninsula." where can I find that for my notes.

> Spanish "aua" can be explained as dropping the "g" from
> > >"agua." French shows the same development ("aout": August) and in other
> > >words. Joutel in 1684-87 wrote for the name of the Indians,
"Chahouanons.
> "
> > >The "-h-" seemingly representing a relic "-g-" of "agua."
> > >
>
> Again, this is just nothing. Joutel, a monolingual European, is just
> attempting  to write /$aawanwa/. The final -ns is a miscopied ua, a
> standard set of miscopied letters.

Weber
It's a stretch. You know that there are only vague opinions about this word
You're saying that, besides not being a trained linguist, he incorrectly
wrote -ns instead of ua,or perhaps it was later miscopied?  Joutels writes
the word many times and the mistake is always there, and, on maps, I've
never seen many miscopies of -ns for -ua. Is this your own?

>
> > >Use of "-migon," after first use in the Jesuit Relations, about 1665,
is
> not
> > >easily etymologized in Algonquian.
>
> Absolutely, since it doesn't exist!

Weber
I'm not sure what you are saying doen't exit. Are you saying "migon" is not
an Indian word, a Miami/Illinos word? Or are you saying it doesn't exist
because the Jesuits in 1665 spelled it differently?


>
> > >even shows "Chagon" as an obvious abbreviation for "Chagouamigon.
> > > Coronelli
> > >shows "-migon" in combination with French "Chou-" and Normande "Cou-."
> Look
> > >at Green Bay. I take these to be the past participle of "choir," "to
> fall,."
> > >with association of use with water. (Coronnilli got information for
this
> map
>
> Coronelli's map are second-hand prettiness made for a king. They are not
> good source material for serious study of onomastics or geograpy.
>

Weber
This is a beautiful map. http://www2.biblinat.gouv.qc.ca/cargeo/accueil.htm.
Like you do with LaSalle and Minet, you impugn the
messenger.  I am familiar, to my knowledge, with just about all the maps
that
apply. There is such a tremendous wealth of information on this map.
Where is better source material? Name names. Sure, the Jesuit Relations
start talking about
"Chagouamigon" as early as 1665.

> > >The Indian "Ch8ca8a," (as seen in Le Boulanger's dictionary, 1720),
> > >apparently borrowed from the French, "Choucagoua," was, before the
> > >Mississippi was from north to south fully navigated in 1682, the name
> (after
> > >1673/4) for a mighty river emptying into Mobile Bay (later called
> > >"Chicagoua," 1697 to 1720). LaSalle used "Choucagoua" also for the Ohio
> > >River, which takes a lot of explaining and a fuller discussion of
DeSoto

Weber
No comment? You formerly told me these maps existed only in someone's
fantasy?

> Le Boullenger did not copy his term from "the French, "Choucagoua"...'
>
> > >I'm still trying to find the water morpheme in Le Boulanger's two
> examples
> > >(1720) of definition "il passe dans l'eau marche": 1. capa8a
irach8ca8a.
> 2.
> > >piman ch8ca8a. As I said, I think the "-a8a" was Iberian, passed on to
> the
> > >Miami/Illinois by the French via historical cartography. Where is the
> > >Algonquian water morpheme supposed to be? if not in loan "-a8a"?


> This is just ignorance of Miami-Illinois. I won't discuss the
> Illinois morphemes here since I've already given Weber too much over the
> years. I'm tired of teaching someone who refuses to learn anything.


Weber
My "ignorant"example, "ch8ca8a," on the bases of its meaning, "il passe
dan's l'eau marche," fits perfectly as the name for the fifty mile corridor
between the Lake and the Illinois River. Changes do occur in writing and
pronunciation. Evidence I presented attempts to explain these changes. I'm
saying the Indians borrowed this from the French.

I'm not sure "over the years" what you mean. You sent me twenty-six e-mails
with the same informed spirit you present here. And then you e-mailed me
last October before my talk at the Newberry to wish the hope I got over my
misbegotten ideas.
>
> > >The association of "Chicago" with the ProtoAlgonquian word for "skunk"
> > >(i.e., urine + small animal + two grammatical suffixes, Frank Siebert,
> 1967)
> > >is ultimately given authority by going all the way back to Le Boulanger
> > >(1720). HOWEVER, next to the "skunk/onions" word, said to have named
the
> > >city, Le Boulanger wrote "abusive." That's been seriously overlooked in
> > >etymologizing "Chicago" by way of "skunk."
>
> The term first appears in the French-Illinois dictionary from the late
> 1600s. Le Boullenger copied a great deal of that dictionary.

There are no dictionaries, so I thought, from the late 1600s. Whose
"dictionary" might this
be. The Jesuits were not even settled into the area until 1700, unless you
are talking about the meager first two Kaskaskias.

>
> I've addressed the "abusive" remark in another reponse to another of
> Weber's flights of fancy. I refer to the LINGUIST listserv archives from
> Fri, 21 Dec 2001. I spent more time on that "rebuttal".

I missed it.

> > >My current hypothesis is that Miami/Illinois "Ch8ca8a," in Le
Boulanger's
> > >dictionary, was borrowed from the French, as chu + pronoun + "water."
The
> > >"chu-" from French "choir," and here referring to the falling of the
> river
> > >over its course. This explains Chicago much better than the onions
> theory --
> > >and the French Academy of Sciences DID write "Chu-" in "Chicago."
> > >

In putting together these European water morphemes, that I claim started
with the Portuguese, there are about half a dozen languages -- French and
Iberian -- that  need looking at. What the
equivalents in the other languages are for French "s'ecouler," "couler,"
"choir," and a few others, seem my best route. The "-l" in "hochelage" may
be as part of "s'ecouler," and not of "lago."

Carl Jeffrey Weber
Chicago